Hidden
by namelessamelie
Summary: "How little we know of what there is to know." - Ernest Hemingway. / Three years after she was tortured on his drawing room floor, Hermione is assigned to work on a project with Draco Malfoy. / COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

There was a time when Hermione wouldn't have dared walk into work with the swollen, blood-shot eyes she was currently sporting. She would have been mortified at the idea of the puffy red evidence of her tears out in the open, for all to see. Hermione Granger did not like to show weakness.

Instead, she would have lingered in front of her mirror in the morning, taking to her concealer like a woman on a mission. She would never have sauntered into her office sans makeup, not even attempting to cover up the fact that she'd been sobbing into her pillow all night.

But that was long ago.

When Hermione arrived at the Ministry on Thursday morning, sleep-deprived and exhausted from fighting, there was no hiding how much she'd cried the night before—nor was it the first time that week she'd gone to work looking that way. Draco Malfoy was already in her office waiting for her, seated across from her desk and lazily shuffling through a stack of crisp parchment.

"Finally," he muttered under his breath when he heard her enter. Then, as he whirled around and saw her face, he let out a short breath. "Merlin, Granger. You look a mess."

"I'm not late," she said irritably, throwing her bag on her chair and removing her cloak. "You're early."

"So what happened?" he asked. "Another fight with _Weasley?_"

Hermione remarked to herself that she couldn't recall a single time he'd said Ron's name without sneering it contemptuously. "That's none of your business."

"That means I'm right, then."

She chose not to reply. Sweeping the contents of her inbox into the air with a flick of her wand, Hermione picked out the memo she wanted and returned the rest to their rightful place on her desk. "Look at this letter I got from Bulgaria," she said, proffering it to him.

Malfoy's eyes glanced quickly over the parchment, then rose to meet hers. "This is why you asked me to meet you? You could have sent this to my desk."

She rolled her eyes. "Did you actually read the letter?" she asked. "Bulgaria doesn't even recognize werewolves as beings, let alone humans. They're classified as magical beasts."

"Put it in the report, then. Is that all?"

Quite used to his temperament by now, Hermione ignored his brusque tone and sat down across from him. "I know it isn't what they're looking for, but I was thinking: don't you think we ought to make a special note of countries like this? You know, nations that could use some guidance when it comes to their magical creatures laws."

Malfoy did not respond. He was still looking at her curiously.

"Well? What do you think?"

"What did you fight about?"

"Excuse me?"

"What did you two fight about?" he repeated, this time more slowly.

Hermione pulled her hands into her lap and began to toy with her engagement ring, turning it slowly around her finger like a rotating planet. "Could we please focus on the matter at hand?" she asked, in as brittle a tone as she could muster.

Malfoy tossed the letter on her desk and rose from his seat. "I'll get started on a list." Just before he turned to leave, he added, "You should take a day off, Granger. Not from work. From Weasley."

She wanted to respond, but could think of nothing to say. Instead, she watched silently, playing with her ring, as Malfoy walked out without looking back.

* * *

The sound of Ron's voice jolted her awake.

"Hermione!" he was yelling from outside her door. "_HERMIONE!_"

"I'm coming!" She peeled the pieces of parchment on which she had fallen asleep off her face before hurrying to the door. "Ron, I'm so sorry, I—"

"For the love of Merlin, Hermione," said Ron, brushing past her as soon as she had unlocked the door to her flat. "I've been shouting your name for the past _hour_."

"I fell asleep. I don't even know how that happened; I was doing some work, and I must have been more exhausted than I realized."

"You didn't hear me?"

"I must have been out like a light. I'm so sorry, Ron."

Ron had already plopped on her sofa and was busy _Accio_-ing himself a Butterbeer. "At least you'll be moving out of this building soon enough. It's such a pain to get here; I don't know how you can stand it."

"It's so much safer," she said, pulling her unruly hair back into a bun. "I know you're used to Apparating in and out of your flat, but without a fireplace or an Apparition point anywhere inside the building, there's hardly any way to break past its wards."

"That elf downstairs _still_ makes me sign in," Ron grumbled.

Hermione walked over to her desk and had just begun to organize her notes into neat piles when she heard a loud groan from the sofa.

"No. Not again. I came all the way here; please don't do any work tonight."

"Will you relax? I'm just putting these notes away."

"You're working too hard. You've got to go easier on yourself, Hermione. When's this report going to be done?"

Not especially eager to discuss this particular subject, Hermione gave a sigh and sat down next to him. "That's the thing, Ron. I think the assignment needs to be taken further."

His eyes shot up. "Taken further?"

"It's just that so many of these countries don't have acceptable laws regarding non-human magical beings. And the Ministry's laws aren't without their own inadequacies."

"Right," replied Ron suspiciously, "but what's that got to do with your report?"

Hermione looked down at her fingers as she began to play with her engagement ring again. "Well, I was thinking that the Ministry could propose one set of updated rights laws. For all the countries in the International Confederation."

"But that isn't even your department. The Department of International Magical Cooperation handles everything to do with the ICW."

"I know," Hermione said, pressure rising in her chest as she prepared to drop the bomb. "But… that _is_ Malfoy's department."

Ron went silent.

After an awkward pause, she continued hurriedly, "So I was thinking that he could make the initial proposal to his Office, and if all goes well—"

"So you want to spend even more time with Malfoy. Of all people."

"Ron, if it gets approved, this project could be _really_ important—"

"We don't even have a wedding date," Ron cut in. "You've been insisting that you've gotten bogged down with so much work that you don't have time to plan the wedding. I barely even see you anymore."

"That's not true," Hermione tried to interrupt, but Ron had no intention of stopping.

"It's one thing if it's your bosses giving you all that work. But it's _you_, isn't it? And now you're volunteering yourself for something that's not even your bloody job, Hermione. You aren't even _supposed_ to be involved with the ICW. But you want to create this enormous project for yourself now, of all times—you'd actually rather spend your precious free time with Draco sodding Malfoy at your office than with me, planning our wedding. It's like you don't even _want_ to get married."

"How can you say that?" she pleaded, but he went on—and she knew exactly what was coming.

"I thought we were finally ready to start thinking about having a family. I thought we were finally starting our life together. But it's like you didn't even mean any of it."

And there it was. Gripping her hands together tightly, Hermione looked down at her carpet and leapt into the all-too-familiar battle that she had been dreading. "I thought we agreed we were done talking about that for now."

"Well, how long do you plan to keep putting it off for, exactly?"

"That isn't fair, Ron. You've known me for ten years; you can't expect me to suddenly turn into your mother."

Ron put down his Butterbeer and stood up. "And what—in the name of Merlin—is _that_ supposed to mean?" he said, his voice rising.

"You know very well what I mean," she replied, her volume beginning to match his.

"Are you saying there's something wrong with my mother?"

"I'm saying that I'm not ready to have children anytime soon, and when I am, I'm not going to just pop out seven of them like she did!"

The color of Ron's face now matched his hair perfectly, but Hermione was undeterred.

"And I am _sick_ of having this fight. I am _sick_ of having to defend myself and tell you, over and over again, that I'm not your mother, and I'm not going to change! If you want to marry someone who's just like her, then I'm completely baffled as to why you proposed to _me!_"

He stared at her, agape, and there was a moment of shocked silence before he responded. "When have I ever said that I wanted to marry someone like my mother?" he asked, his voice confused and considerably softer than before.

"You've never had to say it."

They were quiet. Ron sat back down and took a swig of his Butterbeer, while Hermione's ring made what was most likely its hundredth spin that evening.

After several minutes, he suddenly rose and threw his arms around her, pressing a tender kiss against her forehead. "I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I love you. I don't want you to change. I don't want anyone else. You know that, don't you?"

Hermione wrapped her arms around his waist and breathed in the familiar scent she knew so well. Once, she thought, years earlier, this would have been enough to make her swoon. Once, it would have been enough to make her knees go weak; and she might have cried tears of joy, her heart filled with the warmth of certainty that they were meant for each other.

"Don't you, Hermione?"

The tears came, but they were not of joy.

* * *

Three years after she was tortured on his drawing room floor, Hermione was assigned to work on a project with Draco Malfoy.

She was still working for the Department of Magical Creatures, and he was with the International Magical Office of Law. The laws regarding the treatment of non-human magical beings varied greatly from country to country, and the Ministry wanted a report on all the laws regarding each creature, broken down by nation. The purpose of the report was to see how the Ministry's own laws compared to those abroad, in order to assess whether they needed to be updated.

Hermione was a natural fit for the project, as she was incredibly passionate about the treatment of magical beings—her area of expertise since the days of S.P.E.W. As far as she could make out, Malfoy was chosen mainly for his foreign language abilities—a skill set that was far from unique in his department. For days, after numerous failed attempts to get herself reassigned, Hermione feared the worst.

But to Hermione's great disbelief, it was not at work that she ended up facing bitter quarrels and never-ending arguments. In fact, her days spent at the office with Draco Malfoy became an escape from her constant fighting with Ron at home.

She and Ron had dated scarcely a year before he had started his campaign to pressure her into moving in together, which she had firmly refused to do. When he had finally proposed—and she, unable to imagine marrying anyone other than Ron, had accepted—she thought the fighting would cease at last.

Instead, they only switched subjects.

Now, instead of spending all their time together arguing about why Ron was slowly and surreptitiously moving what seemed like the entirety of his belongings into Hermione's flat, they spent all of their time together arguing about why he wanted so badly to start a family _immediately_, with no concern for how that might affect her career goals and the things she wanted to accomplish while she was still young. Ron could not fathom why she might want to do anything with her life that did not directly involve him. She loved him, and she had wanted to marry him for as long as she could remember, but she was growing less sure of it by the day.

The relationship was draining her, and the bizarre fact that she and Draco Malfoy were able to achieve more peace and harmony in their many hours together than she and Ron could did not exactly inspire confidence in her future marriage.

Not that she and Malfoy were friends, in any sense of the word; nor did they even attempt to feign friendship. They had merely found that they were able to work surprisingly well together. It helped that time had healed some of Hermione's wounds from the war, and Draco had also certainly matured to some degree. While as arrogant and cocksure as ever, he was less hostile than before, and Hermione couldn't shake the feeling that he regretted some of the things he'd done in the past, perhaps including his behavior towards her. And so, despite the initial stiffness on both sides, they had become very good at ignoring their ugly history and had managed to fall quickly into an established rhythm of civil cooperation.

They had fought only once, the day after she and Ron were engaged. They had been comparing notes on their translations of German goblin laws when he caught sight of her engagement ring and suddenly stopped talking.

"What is it?" she asked.

After a long pause, he said, very quietly, "You idiot."

"_What?_"

"You. Idiot." He looked up at her then, his eyes strangely dark. "You threw your life away for _that?_ It's so small I can barely _see_ it from here."

It took her a moment to realize that he was talking about her ring. "How _dare_ you," she finally managed to spit out, so angry that she could barely form words.

"You'll be wasted on him."

"I couldn't care less what you think, Malfoy." And then, with some confusion, after realizing what he had just said, "And since when do you think so highly of me?"

"I don't," Malfoy replied coolly. "In fact, I just told you that you're an idiot."

"Shouldn't I be a genius, according to you? For tricking a real wizard into marrying me and my filthy blood?"

"Convincing Weasley to marry you could hardly be considered an accomplishment."

Furious, Hermione jumped up from her chair, fists curled tightly at her sides. "But I'm a Mudblood, aren't I, Malfoy? Shouldn't I be considered lucky to have a pureblooded wizard even deign to propose to me?"

"_He_ doesn't care about that, though, does he? He's a moron, and you were the smartest witch in our year at Hogwarts. He doesn't deserve you."

With those words, Malfoy rose from his seat and began to put his belongings away. Hermione stared at him in shock, faced with an onslaught of questions and emotions for which she had not been prepared. Had he just complimented her? Struggling to process the new information she'd been given and unable to make sense of it all, she searched for something to say before he left but felt overwhelmed.

Finally, from the storm rushing through her mind surfaced a single, pulsing memory.

"So now I'm a witch?" she asked quietly, her voice brimming with barely contained anger. "I thought I was just a filthy, disgusting little Mudblood who didn't even deserve to be at Hogwarts. I thought I didn't deserve to live."

Malfoy suddenly went very still.

"I thought I was a disgrace to wizarding society," she continued, her voice still quiet and fierce. "You didn't seem to think I deserved better back then. I thought I needed to be put in my proper place—"

At this final echoing of his aunt's words, his head whipped up, and he moved quickly and menacingly in her direction, his eyes burning. "I didn't have a choice, Granger. I never had a choice." His voice was strained but threatening and full of rage, and Hermione was suddenly terrified of him. She wished she could back away as he approached, but she did not want to show weakness; and so her pride kept her in place, her chin held high with false confidence, as he came closer and closer with every word.

"If you think I wanted that—if you think I wanted to _watch_ her—" He stopped and swallowed hard before continuing. "You don't know everything. You think you know everything—that you can know everything by reading those books you love so much—but you're wrong. Not everything you read in those books is true. Not everything you know about people is true. _You don't know me, Granger._ Just like Weasley doesn't know you."

Before she could process those last words, he moved even closer. By now, he was scarcely a breath away from her. "If you think you can know someone from the outside—from looking at them, from what you hear about them—then you're an idiot." He paused, suddenly considering something. "But then, you _are_ marrying Weasley. I thought you were too smart for that, and I was wrong, wasn't I?" He chuckled mirthlessly. "Public opinion really _is_ worthless. See? Everyone said, 'Smartest witch in our year.' But congratulations, Granger, apparently you're just as brainless as that freckled dimwit you're engaged to."

Hermione gaped at him, speechless. Malfoy suddenly seemed to notice how close he was standing to her, and he jumped back as if burned. After taking a moment to regain his composure, he grabbed his belongings and fled from the room.

* * *

The fight—the only one they'd ever had—haunted Hermione for days afterwards. Malfoy went back to working with her as if nothing had ever happened, but she couldn't get his words out of her head. She started looking at him differently, searching for what might lie underneath that she had not seen before. Even the fact that he was able to act so calm and composed around her, as though he had never exploded, fascinated her. What was there, inside Malfoy, that could not be observed from the outside? What was there that no one else knew?

Eventually, her thirst for knowledge drove her to seek out what he would not reveal. One evening, when Hermione had to work long past her usual hours and the Ministry was nearly empty, a whim took her to the Room of Records, where she discreetly located his file and crept into a secluded corner to indulge her love of reading. Everything was there. She looked at his genealogy, at his Hogwarts grades, turning each page delicately, as though it were a gem between her fingers. And then she hit treasure—at the very end of his file waited the full transcript of his official post-war Ministry interview.

Hermione did not go home until 4 AM that night, and even then, she found it hard to sleep. She was transfixed. She lied awake in bed, her sheets cold against her skin, her mind an overcrowded aquarium through which everything she had ever known about Malfoy was now frantically swimming. Over and over, a single thought floated to the surface.

He had not mentioned the incident at Malfoy Manor.

Everything else that she had known about his involvement in the war, whether from direct interaction or through hearsay, had been dutifully included in the interview. Seemingly, he had spared no detail. And yet there it was: the gaping hole, the one event he had chosen to forget.

But why? What did it mean? Did it indicate remorse, some kind of deeper feeling about the incident that made him loathe to relive it? Hermione could not stop imagining the heated look in his eyes as he had said, "_I didn't have a choice._" She struggled to place the emotion she had seen—pain? fury? regret?—but she had to admit that she did not know, could never know, what he had been thinking or feeling.

And what else had he left out? There was so little she knew, she realized, of what Malfoy's experiences in the war had been. If he had skipped over her torture, he could have omitted countless other significant episodes. He could have lied about what he did include. There was no way to know how much information he had kept from the Ministry, how much he was hiding away for himself. Hermione suddenly recalled with horror that she herself had glossed over certain parts in her own account of the war, putting a spin on less honorable moments and leaving out anything that wasn't strictly legal. Future historians would use those flawed accounts in their research.

She was now struck by the enormous fallibility of records. Hermione believed so strongly in the power of knowledge above all else that it had always been her greatest comfort. When confronted at age eleven with an entire world of which she knew nothing, it was books that had given her answers. When she had faced difficulty making friends at a new school, it was in books that she had sought solace. And when she had discovered that in this new environment, she was an outsider—that some believed her kind could never belong—it was in books that she had found her strength, her dignity, and her self-worth. She had trusted them completely. No matter what else was uncertain, facts were facts.

But if records could not be trusted, then books could not be either, and suddenly facts were not so non-negotiable. Fear shot through her veins at the idea of questioning everything she had learned. What could she now say that she knew for sure? Hermione suddenly felt very vulnerable, as though holes had found their way into the armor of information she had amassed over the years.

All that was certain, she thought, was that Malfoy had been right: she did not know him as well as she thought.

* * *

Once Hermione had come up with her idea of proposing an international standard for non-human being laws, she put off asking Malfoy about it for a week. After all, they did not particularly like each other. She couldn't imagine that he would want to spend more time with her than necessary—and the project would make spending a _lot_ more time with her very necessary. She was afraid that he would say no, and she cared so much about it that the rejection would have devastated her.

Hermione knew how stubborn he could be—he didn't often like to make things easy for people. So she prepared. She came up with all sorts of arguments in favor of the project, then planned rebuttals to all the potential reasons he might give for refusing. Finally, she memorized a speech to describe her request, which she then recited to him very nervously and all in one breath.

Malfoy looked at her appraisingly as she made her pitch, then said, "All right."

Caught off guard, she simply stared at him.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"Yes," she stammered, "that's all."

Seemingly unperturbed, he returned to the books in front of him.

Unable to believe her luck, Hermione tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile as she resumed her work—but Malfoy glanced up at her and saw, before responding with a crooked smile of his own.


	2. Chapter 2

The pearls of moisture that had formed on Hermione's glass of champagne closely resembled the beads of sweat that were starting to form on her forehead. She had spent the first half of the event hiding behind the champagne tables, clutching her glass and anxiously surveying the crowd, and she had no intention of leaving her comfort zone anytime soon.

It had been just over a week since she and Ron had had the fight to end all fights. After a colossal battle over whether she would continue to work at the Ministry after having children, Hermione had walked into work the next morning without a ring on her finger. (Malfoy had greeted her with extremely raised eyebrows, but he had said nothing of the change, and she certainly hadn't volunteered any information.)

Only a week. And yet here he was, at this incredibly unimportant Ministry function that absolutely didn't require a date, flouncing around with some cheaply pretty witch on his arm and clearly enjoying himself immensely. Hermione had never seen the witch before in her life, and she felt certain that Ron had met her within the past week.

For her own part, Hermione had not even bothered to dress up properly for the event. If only she'd worn better robes, she thought. Ron's date was dressed spectacularly, in a stunning violet—she, meanwhile, had changed at work into the simplest, most thoroughly boring black robes one could imagine.

It might not have been so terrible—after all, she had been the one to decide they needed a break—if Ron hadn't seemed quite _so _taken with the witch; but as it happened, he was now doing his best impression of an awestruck troll. Everyone would be talking about it tomorrow. Heartbroken, humiliated, and recognizing that there was nothing to be done, Hermione contented herself with fading into the background and waiting it out until the evening was over.

When she heard male footsteps striding purposefully towards her, she assumed it was Harry, coming at last to drag her out of the shadows. But as she gave a resigned sigh and whirled around to greet him, to her great astonishment, she found herself face-to-face with Malfoy instead.

"Hiding?" he asked with an amused smirk.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, trying to mask her shame at being caught with false annoyance.

"Looking for you," he replied. "I couldn't find you anywhere. Then I saw Weasley and understood why."

There it was again—that sneer that always accompanied Ron's last name. "I'm not avoiding him," Hermione said weakly, unsure why she was defending herself to Malfoy, of all people. "I just needed to get away."

"What is it about the Weasleys?" he asked, seeming to be musing aloud. "That awful hair, more freckles than Galleons, and yet such inexplicable success with the opposite sex. How do they do it? You'd think they weren't dirt poor."

Now genuinely annoyed, she turned away from him, glancing over at Ron and his date. "I don't think she's that much of a trophy," she muttered.

"I wasn't talking about the floozy he's with," he scoffed. "I was talking about the family's track record. The eldest married Fleur Delacour, who might be annoying but is still a quarter Veela. Those twins always seem to be doing very well for themselves. The girl snagged Potter—"

"So you think Harry's a catch," Hermione interrupted, breaking into a smile.

Malfoy clenched his jaw. "He's the 'hero of the wizarding world,' isn't he? He might be insufferable, but he could do a lot better than a Weasley." He looked sideways at Hermione. "_You_ could have ended up with him, if you hadn't spent all your time at Hogwarts mooning over his best friend. Which, by the way, is another example of the Weasleys' unexplainable charm."

Hermione looked down at her glass. "I could never have seen Harry that way."

"I understand his appeal more than Weasley's."

"Are you asking me to explain it to you?"

Malfoy gave a small shrug. "Maybe. On second thought, I'd rather not know." He took a step closer to her and surveyed the crowd. "These functions are never much fun, are they? But at least you seem to have staked out the best spot—right next to the drinks. Though this champagne they're serving is, frankly, an atrocity."

She couldn't help but snicker at that last remark. When she looked up at him, his eyes were warmer than she'd ever seen them.

"What do you say we leave early?" He gestured around the room. "Nothing's keeping us here, and Merlin knows we'll need sleep for the massive amount of work you've created for us."

She was gaping at him when he added, "Stop torturing yourself."

He was right. She _was_ torturing herself, cowering in the back of the room like a felon as she watched her ex-fiancé prance around the dance floor with some other girl—and yet the total absurdity of Malfoy asking her to leave a party with him left her dumbfounded.

"You're not supposed to leave these things until the Minister's made his speech," she protested.

"Don't be ridiculous. I seriously doubt our presence will be missed. Usually, I don't even stay this long."

The idea of escaping from the event was so tempting that Hermione had to fight not to give into it. She could be home, safe and sound, far away from where Ron was currently cavorting with his new witch. She hesitated, wondering if leaving early was a form of defeat, when Malfoy took a final step towards her and put his hand on her back.

"Come on. I'll walk you to the Floo."

That was all it took. Hermione let him guide her out of the ballroom, out of the crowd—away from Ron and the utter humiliation of the past hour and a half. Her heart was racing, and she walked so hurriedly that Malfoy had to rush to keep up with her. By the time they got to the lobby, she was out of breath.

"I thought you didn't want to leave," he commented wryly.

"Thank you for walking me out," she said, ignoring his remark. "I'll see you Monday."

She was turning to leave when he called after her, "Don't you live in a guarded flat?"

"How did you know that?" she asked in surprise.

"You live at the Winchester. No Apparition point, no Floo. I'll escort you home."

"That won't be necessary," she insisted, but he was already leading her over to a fireplace.

"How do you usually get home?"

"I Apparate to right outside the building. So really, I'll be fine—"

Barely seeming to hear her, he pulled her into the fireplace before she could finish.

To her bewilderment, Malfoy insisted on accompanying her not only to her building, but upstairs to her flat. By the time he walked into the lift with her, she had given up on protesting. They made the journey in awkward silence, and she suddenly realized that she had never been alone with him outside of work before. Not that that was surprising—never in a million years would Hermione have guessed at Hogwarts that her childhood tormentor would one day voluntarily escort her home.

At the door, she was furiously debating whether common courtesy required her to invite him in for tea when the sound of his voice interrupted her thoughts.

"I don't suppose you're going to invite me in for a nightcap."

"Oh, um, did you want one? I was going to—I don't, um, have much in the way of alcohol, but—"

"Relax, Granger. I didn't expect you to."

Not sure how to respond, she cast her gaze down towards the floor and fiddled with the chains on her purse. "Well," she finally managed, "thank you for walking me back here."

"Yes, now I know where you live," he said matter-of-factly, looking at her with an unreadable expression.

"I guess I'll see you Monday, then. Good night."

"Good night," replied Draco, but he did not move.

There was a moment of silence, and then Hermione, out of things to say and confused as to why he was still standing there, broke in, "Will you be all right getting home?"

"Absolutely."

He remained frozen, and his eyes were still focused intently on her. Hermione was beginning to feel even more uncomfortable than before.

"Um, did you need—" she started to ask, but all of a sudden, he was unfrozen and in motion and pressed against her, so close that she could feel his breath on the side of her face. She tried desperately to wriggle out of his grasp, but he was stronger than her and his arms held her firmly in place.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"I can't stop thinking about you," he whispered, right before his lips came crashing down on hers. When she instinctively struggled against him and pulled her face away, he began to plant soft, pleading kisses at the corner of her mouth and along her jawline.

"Please stop," Hermione gasped. "Stop. Please."

He obeyed, but he did not move away from her. Too shell-shocked to step back, she stood there in his arms and struggled to control her breathing. For what felt like an eternity, they remained in the hallway, pressed against each other and silent, until he finally released her.

He smoothed back his silvery hair, uttered a polite "Good night," and was gone.

* * *

Ron was at her flat not ten minutes later.

When she first heard the determined knock, she thought it was Malfoy. She was panicking over how to respond when Ron began to shout through the door.

"Hermione, open up! I know you're there!"

A strange disappointment washed over her. She unlocked her door, but did not move to let him in. "What are you doing here, Ron?"

"Where is he?"

"What?"

"Is he here?"

Hermione stared at him. "I haven't the faintest clue—"

"_Is—he—here?_" he bellowed, and when she did not immediately reply, he pushed past her and into the flat.

"What do you think you're doing?" she shouted at him, but he was already making his way through her home. When he found no one, he turned and faced her.

"Where's Malfoy?"

A wave of understanding hit her, and she gave a dark laugh. "You can't be serious—"

"Why did you leave with him?" he interrupted, fuming.

"That's really none of your business, isn't it?"

"_None of my business?_" he echoed, and she could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears. "I'm your fiancé; I'd say it's damn well my business who you leave—"

"Oh, so _now_ you're my fiancé? Certainly didn't look that way tonight."

"You told me you wanted a break, not that you were going to go off and start running around with Draco bloody Malfoy!"

"I have not been _running around_ with Malfoy—"

"I _saw_ you leave together."

"He just brought me home!"

"How long has this been going on?" he demanded. "I want to know. Is this why you were spending so much time at work?"

"Are you _out of your mind_?"

"Tell me right now what's going on between you and Malfoy!"

"Nothing is going on between—"

"Then why did you leave together?"

"Absolutely _nothing_ is going on between me and Malfoy!" she yelled.

There was a pregnant pause. They stood in the living room, glaring at one another, and Hermione felt a sudden pang of guilt as the recent sensation of lips on hers flashed through her memory. She reached to play with her ring, but found nothing there.

After several minutes of unbearable silence, Ron asked quietly, "Are we still engaged or not?"

"I can't believe you," she said, her voice heavy with pain. "You're the one who couldn't wait a week to start dating other women. And you think you have the right to come here and question me about—"

"That was just for tonight," Ron cut in. "And I thought you were the one who wanted this break, not me. I don't even _want_ to date other people."

"You're a hypocrite," said Hermione, blinking back tears. "You're such a hypocrite."

"Hermione. Are we still engaged or are we not?"

"I can't do this," she said, turning away to hide the tears now streaming down her face. "Please leave."

"Hermione—"

"Please leave."

He said nothing for a moment. Then he asked, "Are you dating Malfoy?"

"No."

She secretly hoped that he would stay; that he would walk over to her, take her in his arms, and comfort her the way he always did after their fights. She hoped he would wipe the tears from her eyes and hold her. Her finger felt cold and naked where his ring had once been.

But as soon as she gave him the answer he had been searching for, he turned and left. Had the door not slammed on his way out, she might not have even known that he was gone.

* * *

Hermione spent the whole weekend dreading Monday afternoon. She and Malfoy were scheduled to meet to discuss Centaur property law, and she would have given almost anything to get out of sitting through a meeting alone with him. In fact, she could barely think about him without blushing in embarrassment.

But when the hour came and she walked hesitantly into his office, he began speaking about their project immediately, without even looking up from his work. He very rarely looked directly at her during their meeting, but otherwise, it was as if nothing had changed between them. Hermione managed to get through the discussion, but felt the entire time as though she were holding her breath.

"I think that's everything for today," she said at last.

"Good," he replied, then started to clean up his desk. "Are you heading straight out?"

"Yes."

"So am I." Malfoy grabbed his cloak from the rack nearby and gestured towards the door. "After you, then."

They walked together in awkward silence for the second time that week as they headed to the lift, never making eye contact. Once inside, they both stared straight ahead at the closed door as if it were the most fascinating thing on Earth.

"Did you have a good weekend?" Hermione finally asked, hoping to relieve some of the nearly suffocating tension.

Malfoy turned to look at her. "It was all right."

"That's good," she said, meeting his gaze.

She noticed that he was eyeing her curiously, as if looking for something—for _permission_, she suddenly realized—and he must have found it, for all at once he was much, much closer and kissing her.

It was completely different from the first time. This kiss was wild and hungry and intense; he had nearly lunged at her out of impatience. There was no softness, no pleading, and yet his lips were dangerously persuasive. This time, he did not seem afraid that she would suddenly pull away, and instead of gripping her in place, his hands floated like feathers along her face and neck, leaving no spot unexplored. She could not remember the last time she had been kissed like this, with such passion. Hermione was consumed.

So she closed her eyes and yielded, sinking into him with a feeling akin to surrender. She let his hands wander, and she clutched at him with her own, first grasping the crooks of his arms, then roaming up to his chest, and at first she could not stop thinking: _Malfoy. This is_ Malfoy. _Bully, Death Eater, sworn enemy. What am I doing?_

And then she lost herself in his warmth and stopped thinking at all.

When the lift lurched to a stop, Malfoy pulled swiftly away from her and looked straight ahead with a blank expression. By the time the doors opened and let the world in, he had defined their relationship, establishing not only a safe physical distance between them but also the terms of their affair. They were a secret, something to be hidden behind walls and closed doors—never to be recorded as fact.

They walked out into the lobby together and exchanged polite goodbyes before parting ways. She was so embarrassed that she barely looked at him as they spoke, and she could think of nothing else besides getting into the nearest fireplace as quickly as possible.

Later, she would think back and cringe at how quickly she had given in to Draco Malfoy. Later, she would be surprised at how much she had enjoyed it, how easily she had forgotten herself. Later, she would wonder if she had made a mistake.

But when she found him waiting for her at her building's Apparition point, all she could think of was kissing him again. It was she who kissed him next, in the lift on their way upstairs. He kissed her the fourth time, as soon as she'd shut the door to her flat.

After that, she stopped keeping track.


	3. Chapter 3

What they had—if it had been a romance, which it was not—would have been a whirlwind romance. They were drawn to each other like magnets, pulled together almost against their will. Every moment they could be alone together, they were. Hermione could not make sense of how it had all begun, but the attraction was undeniable. She found herself questioning how long she had felt this way, if this was why she had been so fascinated by him for so long.

She also often wondered when Malfoy had become attracted to her, but she never asked. They never spoke of such things. It was as though they were unable to acknowledge what was happening, even with each other.

Hermione still cared deeply for Ron, but it was easy to forget him in the excitement of her clandestine meetings with Malfoy. He was everything Ron was not: confident, complicated, and thrillingly forward. Occasionally, she felt guilty about having told Ron that nothing was going on between them, but she reasoned that it had been true at the time—it was only later that it had become a lie.

The arrangement actually seemed to help their work. They were so eager to spend as much time together as possible that they threw themselves into their project with even more enthusiasm than before, and it was a success. Both Hermione and Draco received praise for their initiative and for the quality of their work, and their proposals were eventually adapted for recommendation to the ICW.

Sometimes she worried that she was falling in love with him. She knew that wouldn't do—he never openly expressed his feelings for her, and he visibly flinched at signs of affection, as if afraid of becoming too attached. There was always distance between them, dense and unnavigable; she dared not attempt the leap for fear of falling into the abyss below.

And yet she wanted to believe that it all meant something to him. He was, after all, thoughtful in ways that Ron never was. On cold mornings, she arrived at her desk and found coffee that had been charmed to stay warm. If she ever so much as mentioned in conversation a book she wanted to read, he plucked it from his family library and delivered it to her without a word. When she fell asleep copying laws into her notes, she woke to find that it had been finished for her.

But he never acknowledged any of it, and she, in turn, never thanked him. Instead, she protected her hope by hiding it from him, by kindling the small flame in secret. Since he himself would provide no comfort, she was forced to find it alone, in the passion they shared.

* * *

Hermione told no one, of course, but it wasn't long before Harry noticed that something had changed.

"You've been spending a lot of time with Malfoy recently," he observed one day over lunch.

"It's this project," she said very quickly. "It's been a lot more work than I'd hoped."

Harry nodded. He and Hermione didn't often get to see each other now that she and Ron were on the outs, but they sometimes managed to steal a lunch together in the Ministry cafeteria when Ron was busy on a case.

"Ron seemed to think that the two of you were getting a bit close," he went on. "But you know how he is; he's terribly jealous. I told him he was being insane."

Hermione bit into her sandwich to avoid having to respond.

"But you do seem to be getting along—I mean, you haven't fought once, right? I'm surprised you aren't having problems working together."

"He's grown up a bit," she replied as nonchalantly as possible. "Work is work. We make an effort to be civil."

He nodded again, looking thoughtful.

"How are you and Ginny?" Hermione asked, trying to change the subject. "I haven't seen her since—well, you know."

"She's great," said Harry. "Always away for games, though. Don't worry, Hermione, she's not avoiding you—she's just busy. She thought you and Ron needed the space."

"It must be hard having her away all the time."

"Nah, it's better than you think. I actually think it might have helped you and Ron if you hadn't worked in the same building."

"Really? But we never even saw each other at work."

"That's the thing. Being in the same place all the time, but not actually _being_ together. I think it put a lot of pressure on you guys." Harry reached across the table and took her hand. "He really cares about you, you know. And he needs you. You shouldn't give up on him."

Hermione gave a weak smile. "I should be getting back."

They stood up to leave. "You should come by the Auror Office sometime," Harry suggested. "He'd be happy to see you. And so would I."

* * *

When Pansy owled him asking to meet for tea, Draco was happy to accept. The two were still friends, despite their failed romance at Hogwarts—though she had not initially taken it well when he had ended things, they had been friends since childhood, and she did not want to lose him completely. So they still saw each other on occasion, and any awkwardness between them had been mostly forgotten.

At the end of an afternoon spent catching up over scones in Diagon Alley, Pansy put down her teacup and leaned over the table conspiratorially.

"I have a confession to make," she confided. "I had an ulterior motive for asking you to tea."

"That doesn't surprise me at all," replied Draco.

"I have a date next week. A date I want to impress. And no one I know is as stylish or as critical of women as you are."

"Merlin, Pansy. Don't you have an airhead girlfriend you can drag out for this sort of thing?"

"I'd much rather take you," she whined. "You can provide a man's insight."

He eventually acknowledged defeat and agreed to go shopping with her. After she had picked out a few outfits, Pansy disappeared into the dressing room while Draco waited outside.

And then he saw her.

Hermione was walking towards the dressing room, several sets of work robes in hand, when she noticed him and stopped, looking confused. Before he had a chance to react, Pansy stepped out. "What do you think?"

Draco's lips parted, but he was too surprised to speak, and Pansy followed his gaze to Hermione, who was staring at her.

"Oh. Hello," said Pansy curtly.

The other witch mumbled something in reply.

"I didn't know you shopped here," Pansy started to say, but Hermione had already turned and fled.

* * *

That evening, Draco showed up at Hermione's flat uninvited. When she came to the door, she did not immediately let him in.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Can I come in?"

She bit her lip. "I'm busy."

"I won't stay long."

After a moment of hesitation, she stepped aside, then went back to her desk and silently resumed working.

"Do you have a minute?"

"I told you I was busy."

He walked over and took the quill out of her hand.

"What do you think you're—"

"Hermione. Listen to me."

She stood up and snatched her quill back from him. "What is it?"

"I wanted to explain why I was with Pansy today."

"You really don't have to do that," said Hermione, looking away from him as she sat back down.

"I want to."

"You don't need to."

"I didn't say I needed to; I said I wanted to."

"Well, don't!"

"Can you please look at me?"

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," she said, unsuccessfully feigning disinterest as she continued not to look at him. "We're not in a relationship. You're obviously free to do whatever you like."

"Stop it," he said irritably, kneeling down by her chair and grabbing her by both shoulders. "Will you listen to me? I saw Pansy today for the first time in months, to catch up over tea. She has a date next week that she wants to impress, so she asked me to help her pick out something to wear. She wanted a man's opinion."

"Why are you telling me this?" Hermione said in a small voice, still determinedly avoiding his gaze.

"I wanted to tell you that I'm not dating Pansy."

She looked him at then, and he was not prepared for the amount of emotion he saw in her eyes as they examined him. "I should get back to work," she whispered at last, before affording him a small smile.

Draco knew she was too proud to say anything else, so he nodded and rose. He left her flat cursing himself. There was no denying it anymore: his fears had been realized. He had gotten in too deep.

* * *

Everything changed after that.

Hermione became warmer to him, noticeably so. It was as if she had let down a guard that he hadn't even been aware of. He started to catch her looking at him at work, and she no longer bothered to look away in haste and pretend to have been doing something else. She began bestowing kisses, previously reserved for the throes of passion, as affectionate gestures of intimacy. And the day after he lost one of his favorite gloves, an expensive pair that was woven from soft black fairy silk, he found on his desk a neatly wrapped package that held a pair of the exact same gloves. Embroidered in shimmering gold at the cuff of each glove were his initials, and Draco recognized the spellwork immediately: they were charmed to be summoned by the owner no matter how far they were. He knew what the gloves cost and what that would mean for her. He knew her salary to be a pittance.

Draco was tormented. He had made a terrible mistake in starting anything with her—and an even worse one in giving her hope that their clandestine affair could lead to something more. He deeply regretted reassuring her about Pansy, but she had looked so miserable in the store, and he had not been able to bear the idea of hurting her. The biggest mistake, he knew, had already been made before then: he had not meant to become so emotionally invested in what they had.

And now, he realized, to his horror, he would have to hurt her even more. What had he expected? He could never marry her. He wished more than anything that he could return to the day that she had asked him about expanding their project and turn her down this time. But it was too late. He had been weak, and he had not been able to resist the prospect of spending more time with her.

He knew he needed to end things, but he could not bring himself to do it. So he was cold to her instead, trying to make it clear that their relationship could never amount to anything more than a few stolen moments. He hoped to crush any futile dreams early on, that he might spare her the pain of disappointment when she inevitably realized that they were no more than a dirty secret. But she was undiscouraged.

He insisted on paying her back for the gloves. She could not afford them, he pointed out. He even shouted at her that it was not her place to buy things for him. But still she refused, her eyes calm and steady, lit by a stubborn, brilliant flame that would not be extinguished. _I know what you're trying to do_, they seemed to say, _and I'm not fooled._

When he stayed away for a week, blaming work, she remained unfazed. "Let's have dinner," she suggested, having appeared at his office unannounced and under the guise of asking him a question about their completed project. It was only when he saw her in his doorway that he realized just how much he had missed her.

"Are you mad?" he hissed through his teeth.

"You deserve a break from work."

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said, as coolly as he could.

"I'll cook."

"We both know you can't."

"Then I'll order something," she said with a shrug.

He could feel his resolve melting with each passing second. "It would have to be very quick," he said, fidgeting with his quill.

"We could go to a Muggle café. No one would know us there."

_A Mudblood through and through_, he thought to himself as he said, "All right."

* * *

Ultimately, it was the story he heard from a co-worker that forced him to bite the bullet.

"Check out Weasley," Tracey Davis said one day after lunch, nudging him in the side as they waited for the lift together in the Ministry lobby. "He's a wreck."

Draco glanced over at him. "When is he not?"

"You didn't hear?" she asked, clearly excited at the opportunity to share her gossip. "Harry Potter threw a party last night, and apparently Weasley got drunk and begged Hermione Granger back in front of everyone."

Fighting to appear uninterested, Draco gave a non-committal snort.

"It must have been humiliating when he woke up this morning and realized what happened," she went on.

"I take it she said no?"

Tracey leaned in closer. "She told him she's moved on and that he needs to forget about her. Can you imagine? How embarrassing. Rumor has it there's someone new."

He broke it off that same day.

Of course, he didn't tell her at the time—he wasn't strong enough. Instead, as they lied in bed for what would be the last time, he told her in a strained voice that he would be quite busy in the near future and most likely would not be able to see her for some time.

"Oh," she replied. "That's all right. Is it work?"

Keeping his eyes averted, he shook his head. "It's a lot of things."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps next weekend."

He did not respond, and she, too, remained silent. When he finally turned to look at her, he struggled to memorize her, to absorb every detail of her—the pale pink lips; the dark, intelligent eyes; the wild hair fanned out on her pillow like a halo. He felt a sudden onslaught of panic: he had so little time left, and he needed to remember these things. His insides smarted at the thought of never being this close to her again.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she asked, interrupting his reverie.

"What?"

"You're _studying_ me," she said with a laugh. "Why are you doing that?"

_Because I don't want to lose you_, he wanted to say. _Because I'll never get to hold you like this again, and I want to remember every single thing about you._

He knew she would never forgive him for leaving her without an explanation, but he could not bear to say goodbye. So what he said instead was:

"Because you're beautiful."

It was the only compliment he'd ever paid her.

Hermione's eyes clouded with an unrecognizable emotion, like a room filling slowly with mist. As she leaned over to kiss him, he said, under his breath and so softly that she could not hear, "I'm sorry."


	4. Chapter 4

It took Hermione several weeks to grasp that things were over between her and Draco. She thought at first that he was merely busy, as he had claimed. Even when she finally began to sense that he was avoiding her, she was still in doubt—she could not understand what had changed. Surely he wouldn't just disappear from her life, without so much as a warning. She was unable to accept that what they had shared had been so meaningless that he didn't even feel the need to do her the courtesy of actually ending it.

And then again, she realized with a sinking feeling of despair, what was there to end? They had not once discussed what they were. _You can't lose something that was never yours._

For all she'd thought she'd learned about Malfoy, it turned out she didn't know him any better now than she had before. In fact, she felt as though she knew less; before, she had mistakenly thought that she had him all figured out. Now, she knew she would never understand him.

Hermione was devastated, of course, but had too much pride to confront him about it—to even ask him what had happened. She clearly meant nothing to him; why reveal that he meant anything to her? The last thing she wanted was his pity.

So now, when she woke up in the mornings, heartbroken and puffy-eyed from crying into her pillow the night before, she stood at her bathroom mirror for as long as it took to hide her misery. No longer was she too tired to care what others thought. Each day, as she applied her makeup, Hermione swore to herself that she would never let him see how much he'd hurt her.

* * *

"So I heard that project you and Malfoy worked on turned out to be a pretty big deal," said Ginny, leaning excitedly over the dinner table. "Harry told me there's been rampant talk of promotions for both of you."

Hermione smiled politely and took a sip of her wine. It was the first time that she and Ginny had caught up alone since she had called off her engagement with Ron, and though she had been terrified that Ginny might still harbor some resentment against her for having broken her brother's heart, things had gone smoothly so far.

"Anyway, I'm so glad all your hard work has finally paid off."

"I haven't even been promoted yet," Hermione protested, but Ginny went on.

"Especially having to work with Malfoy all those hours—Harry told me everything. I can't imagine how much you must have suffered. By the way, did you know that he's dating Fleur's little sister? Fleur just told me about it last week, and I was absolutely shocked."

Hermione felt every muscle in her body go completely still. "No, I didn't."

"Can you believe it? Gabrielle Delacour. I thought she had more sense than _that_."

"I don't really keep track of Malfoy's personal affairs," Hermione lied, as casually as she could muster.

"Well, apparently he's a total arsehole to her, which is hardly a surprise. She complained to Fleur that he treats her like a trophy and seems to have no interest whatsoever in an actual relationship. His parents had a party at the Manor last week, and he took Gabby as his date, but he barely spoke to her once the entire time."

Jealousy swelled in her heart like an ugly, infected wound, and she felt as though she might burst. He was taking Gabrielle, whom he could not have dated long, out and about in public; he was showing her off at his parents' parties. Hermione felt more than ever the full weight of her nothingness. "That sounds like him," she said, as airily as she could.

"I just don't understand why she would ever want to date him. Do you think it's the money?"

"Who knows?" asked Hermione, desperately trying to suppress the ache that was steadily building inside her chest.

"The worst part is, Fleur told me she thinks it's because of the Veela thing that he's so awful to her. She said Narcissa made sure to bring it up more than once that night."

"The Veela thing?"

"You know, they're a quarter Veela. Apparently the Malfoys think that's _embarrassing_," said Ginny, rolling her eyes. "But the Delacours are a very important family in France—wizarding aristocracy and whatnot—so I suppose the pureblood pedigree makes up for that little blemish."

Pureblood.

Of course.

And then it was not an ache, but something much more—a burning sensation that erupted inside of her, stinging her skin and melting her helpless bones—and it could not be ignored, and it could not be willed away. Soon nothing would remain of her but ash. The pain was overwhelming, but Ginny did not notice; she was still talking—and Hermione was very still, because it hurt too much to move.

Ginny mistook her silence for disgust and anger at the Malfoys' bigotry, and she reached out to take Hermione's hand.

"I know. It's _insulting_ how little they've changed. You'd think they'd have learned something, especially since they'd all be in Azkaban right now if it weren't for Harry. Sometimes I think he shouldn't have testified on Narcissa's behalf after all."

"Harry's a bleeding heart," Hermione said, hastily changing the subject. "He tries to hide it, but he looks for the best in people." She wondered, as she spoke, if her voice betrayed any of the immobilizing pain that was shattering her already broken heart.

* * *

Draco's days were soaked in regret.

He had not been able to date a single girl since he had first kissed Hermione. He had tried—he had gone on several dates with a few acceptable pureblood prospects, including Gabrielle Delacour, and he had slept with a girl once as a distraction. But none of it worked. She was under his skin, and it seemed there was nothing he could do to erase her memory.

He spent entire nights awake, fighting the urge to Apparate to her apartment. He knew he needed to stay away, that nothing had changed. But the darkness of night seemed to somehow diminish the importance of all the obstacles that stood between them, and he was forced to lie in bed and remind himself of all the reasons he had ended things in the first place. It got worse when he heard a rumor that she was dating Terry Boot: though he tried not to let it bother him, he could not stop himself from agonizing over it.

Draco began to live for the moments when he ran into her at the Ministry. A silent ride in the lift, shared with a couple strangers; a stolen glance across the lobby; an inter-department meeting spent sitting across from one another—these were the pitiful encounters he came to prize above all else. He spent weeks waiting for them, thinking about them. When there were not enough, he began to plan them—he knew her schedule, and these little brushes were easily arranged. But no matter how pathetically he labored to plot such chance encounters, he never used them to speak to her or do anything more than pretend fiercely to ignore her.

When he was eventually sent to her department to get an International Creature Transfer form signed, he felt a small thrill at the chance to see her. On his way to the conference room, where his contact was waiting, he snuck a furtive peek into her office, but she was not there. Disappointed, he continued on to the conference room and opened the door to enter.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Hermione stared up at him from the conference table, equally still. The quill she had been playing with as she waited was now dangling from her fingers in mid-air, like an unfinished melody.

"I didn't know you handled creature transfers," he blurted out.

"I don't. I'm covering for Peter."

Draco entered the room and put the forms down gingerly on the table between them. Unable to bring himself to meet her eyes, he was silent as she reached for the parchment and wordlessly began to fill it out. He wished he had known it would be her. It was the first time they had spoken since their final night together; and he would have wanted to plan for it, to think of things to say. Instead, he had been caught so off guard that he could barely breathe properly, let alone string together a sentence.

"Do you need me to sign off on all of these?" she asked quietly.

Draco summoned the courage to glance at her. "Yes, please."

Hermione looked back at him with an arched eyebrow. "I didn't know _please_ was in the Malfoy vocabulary," she said frostily, before turning back to the parchment in front of her. He wanted desperately to ask her if she was still seeing Boot, but he knew he had no right to ask—and she would most likely tell him so herself—so he bit his tongue.

After some time, her voice finally pierced the heavy silence. "You must be very pleased with yourself." Her tone could have cut steel.

Draco was so lost in his thoughts that he was completely unprepared for her sudden attempt at conversation. "Sorry?"

"You must be very _pleased_ with yourself," Hermione repeated bitterly, jamming her quill so viciously onto the forms as she wrote that Draco feared she might stab holes in the parchment. When he did not respond, still thoroughly confused, she finally looked up and rolled her eyes at him. "I heard you've been nominated to serve as a Junior Representative to the ICW."

"Oh," Draco responded with sudden understanding. "Um, yes. They put me on the list."

"Congratulations," Hermione said calmly, having already returned to the forms.

"It's really thanks to you, you know. It would never have happened without the Creatures proposals."

"Don't be so modest, Draco." Her voice trembled slightly as she continued to write furiously. "It's not your color."

"My color?"

"It doesn't suit you."

He was silent. The only sound in the room for several minutes was her quill scratching angrily across parchment, betraying the emotion behind her icy demeanor.

Then, without warning, she suddenly stopped writing and looked up at him. He had been staring blankly at the table, and his head jerked up at her sudden movement. For a moment, the two gaped at each other in silence, both seemingly searching for something. And then, as if on cue, both turned away—she lowered her gaze to the parchment before her, and he suddenly found the paint on the far wall mesmerizing.

When she was finally finished filling out the forms, she rose abruptly, and he followed. She put them neatly in order and held them out to him without meeting his eyes, and he hesitated to take them. There was so much he wanted to say to her, so much he needed her to know. Who knew when he would have an opportunity like this again? But then, he had come this far; it would be a waste to suddenly, at this point, demolish the dam he had struggled to build. And yet—a nagging little voice in the back of his mind asked him—what would be the harm in telling her now? It was over anyway. Perhaps he would sleep better at night if she knew.

As he stood there, frozen, without accepting the forms, her eyes rose to meet his, and he drew in a sharp breath. "Hermione—"

"I really should be getting back to work," she said stiffly, looking away from him.

He still did not take the forms. His chest felt suddenly hollow, and a great wave of pressure threatened to come crashing down on his throat. Blinking fiercely, he finally reached out for the parchment she was handing him.

"All right," he said hoarsely. "Thank you."

She did not leave immediately. "I hope you get it," she said quietly, before turning towards the door. It was typical of her—to be kind even as she was angry.

"I hope I don't," he replied, just as softly. His eyes were glued to the floor.

"Why not?"

"Because," he choked out, "if I got the job," and the rest he said in barely a whisper, "I wouldn't run into you like this anymore."

She paused for only a second—and he did not look to see her reaction—before leaving the room and slamming the door shut behind her.

* * *

The next day, Draco was awarded the position of Junior Representative of England at the International Confederation of Wizards. The announcement was a media-heavy affair, and after many posed smiles and handshakes, he retreated to his office in the International Law division for what would be the last time.

Leaning back in his chair, he loosened his tie and willed himself to be happy. The job had been his dream since starting at the Ministry. It was the only thing he could remember wanting in the past several years—but that, he admitted to himself, was a lie; he could most certainly think of one other thing he had wanted, perhaps even more desperately.

In fact, that was all he could think of right now. He tried not to think of the day before and how he had embarrassingly declared his feelings for the girl who now hated him (yet again), right before she stormed out on him. It was _humiliating_, really, and so unlike him that he could barely believe it had actually happened.

And worse, what he had said was true. Despite his long-lived hunger for the job at the ICW, he found, to his horror, that he no longer wanted it. He knew what it meant: that he would no longer be in England most of the time, that he would travel constantly and rarely find himself in his new office at the Ministry. He knew that he would hardly ever see her again.

Isn't that what he had wanted all along?

_No_, he suddenly wanted to scream, _it was never my choice to make._

But that, too, was a lie, and he knew it. He picked up the crystal dragon-shaped paperweight on his desk and flung it across the room, where it shattered with a resounding crash.

* * *

The conference room was the last time they spoke alone.

When Draco returned temporarily from his first Confederation Assembly, Hermione was engaged again, and she no longer worked for the Department of Magical Creatures. Her life had moved so quickly while he was gone that he found himself wondering, in amazement, how his awkward and pathetic confession could have had no effect on her whatsoever. While he was away, he had somehow developed the delusion that Hermione would be waiting for him back home with bated breath—that, touched by his tender admission, she would have been unable to think of anything else; that she would have cursed how quickly he had had to leave England behind (preventing her from seeing him for months); that she would have anxiously counted the days until she could finally confront him about what it had all meant.

He had agonized countless times in Paris over what to tell her—in cafés, in his family's pied-à-terre apartment, in his seat at the Confederation Assembly—and he had never reached a conclusive answer. He could never marry her; that had not changed. Surely she had known that all along. But he could also no longer imagine living a life without her in it. His days in Paris had been easy compared to the hell he went through in London, knowing that she was always within reach and yet far away. In France, the physical distance between them had given him comfort—it had enabled him to cling to the illusion that the Channel was all that separated them.

Coming home served as a cold reminder that that was not the case.

He saw her once in the Ministry lobby from afar, her microscopic disgrace of an engagement ring locked firmly around her finger. If Weasley had kept it all along, Draco realized, he must never have given up hope. All that time, Weasley must have known he'd be able to win her back.

With the thought came a sinking feeling in his stomach: Hermione had never truly been his.

Draco might have approached her, but she was with Potter. Her eyes were dark and deep and focused, the way they always looked when she was lost in conversation, and she was chatting away so enthusiastically that she took no notice of him. She had cropped her unmanageable hair short, which didn't suit her (only _she_ would get a haircut like that right before a wedding, he thought to himself bitterly), and she looked thinner than before. Now that she could no longer pin her hair back, it kept falling in her face, and she had to continually brush strands of it out of her eyes as she talked. She did not look happy, Draco thought, but that might have been his imagination—after all, he would have given anything to believe that that was true.

Once she and Potter had Flooed out of the building, Draco emerged from the shadows and stood alone in the lobby, feeling farther from her than he ever had before.

* * *

He drank himself into oblivion the day she married Weasley. After spending a week wallowing in his drunken misery and staring at her smiling photo in the newspaper, he stormed into his parents' manor and demanded that they set him up with a suitable witch.

"What's gotten into you?" his mother asked, bewildered, but he gave no answer. He wanted to get married, he said, and he wanted to do it now.

His parents did not squander the opportunity to find him an ideal witch. They chose to introduce him to Astoria Greengrass, a pureblooded Slytherin with no Death Eater ties. Draco was married within the year.


	5. Chapter 5

It was Hermione who saw him first.

She saw him before Ron did, before Ron pointed him out to Harry and they all turned to stare. In the deepest part of her heart, she had to admit that she had looked for him—she knew how old Scorpius was, and she had known that he would be there.

He was standing with his wife and child, speaking quietly and looking very serious, his coat buttoned tightly up to his throat. She had not seen him in years, and she was surprised at how weary he looked, as though life had worn him down. His features still bore a certain aristocratic dignity, but the youthful vibrance she remembered so well had faded.

Hermione could not explain the sudden twinge of melancholy she felt upon seeing him. It had been years. She and Ron had been more than happy ever since their reconciliation—Draco had been no more than a forgotten mistake. And yet there was something about seeing him again after all those years, knowing there was still so much about him she would never know. He had always been a mystery; and even now she could not help but wonder what was hidden beneath the surface, what secrets he kept buttoned up beneath his thick black coat.

For her part, she would never reveal how much she still thought of him—how her eyes still lingered on his name when she spotted it in the paper, how she eavesdropped on conversations when she heard him mentioned. She would never admit how his confession in the conference room had haunted her for months afterwards; how she had secretly hoped they would run into each other again before he left, so that she could ask him all sorts of questions to which she had since accepted that she would never know the answers.

When Draco turned to look in her direction, their eyes met for only a brief instant before he nodded at Harry and Ron and turned back. Ron made a joke about Rose beating Scorpius in school, and Hermione admonished him half-heartedly. Laughing, he put an arm around her, and she suddenly felt very warm.

As the train departed, she thought of everything that their children would never know about their parents. She reflected on how much Ron and Astoria would never know about their own spouses—and conversely, how much she and Draco would never know about them.

He turned to look at her one last time, his eyes grey and expressionless, before leaving with his wife. And just like that, before she had even left the platform, Hermione was already looking forward to seeing him again at the end of the year. To her chagrin, she knew that she would spend the next nine months waiting.

And then the day would come, and they would stand on the same platform, sweating under the heat of the early summer sun, sneaking glances as they waited for their children. They would ignore each other as they spoke to their respective spouses. And they would go on living their separate lives, no closer than before, buttoning away their thoughts and carrying the weight of things unspoken.

"What are you thinking?" asked Ron.

"Nothing." Hermione gave him a kiss and reached up to smooth out his hair. "Let's go home."

* * *

**the end**

* * *

****Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading along! I've absolutely loved reading your wonderful reviews, and of course, I'm very interested in what you all have to say about this ending. Any thoughts/comments would be most appreciated.

I also know that quite a few of you were hoping that this story would be longer, and I'm sorry that it had to end here. If you're interested, however, I've just begun posting another story that's considerably longer than this one (Different Names for the Same Place), and I would love for all of you to check it out!


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